


Imperfect Contrition

by VirginiaPlain64



Category: Hail Caesar! (2016)
Genre: Angst, Closeted Character, Communism, Hollywood, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Yuletide New Year's Resolutions Challenge, anti-Semitism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-06-30 20:17:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15758940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VirginiaPlain64/pseuds/VirginiaPlain64
Summary: Even the man who kept the secrets doesn't know all of them.





	Imperfect Contrition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Heather](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heather/gifts).



> Written for the New Year's Resolution Challenge for Yuletide 2017. Please note the story does contain anti-Semitism and homophobia.

Eddie never did quit smoking. He just managed to outlive his doctors, two different priests and every other buttinsky who told him he ought to stop. He also outlived Connie and after that it didn’t matter anyway. 

Capital Pictures barely survived the 1960’s and was eventually sold to a foreign conglomerate, leaving Eddie with a pile of money and no particular reason to get up in the morning. He’d occasionally amuse himself by agreeing to meet with some fresh-faced young film student or would-be biographer who’d convinced themselves that Eddie Mannix, “the man who kept the secrets,” was actually going to confirm all the dirty rumors they’d been salivating over since they first read “Hollywood Babylon.”

Inevitably they arrived wearing glasses and carrying notebooks. Eager beavers, every one. They wanted “the true story,” or “the low-down.” They truly believed that their unwritten book or half-baked master’s thesis would “blow the lid off Tinsel town’s dark underbelly.” Which glamorous legend was a drunk, a whore, a dope fiend, an illiterate oaf, a Commie, a faggot, or some combination thereof? Abortions, murders, suicides, diseases, fake marriages, fake divorces, treason, and insanity. He’d listen to their questions, nod his head, take a drag on a cigarette that wasn’t killing him fast enough and proceed to feed them the exact same bullshit he’d spend his whole career spreading over the dark underbelly to keep the image of the stars pure and sparkling. 

Baird Whitlock was a stand-up guy who loved to read the classics. Gable was a man’s man, but also a gentleman. Gloria DeLamour wasn’t a nympho. Tyrone Power had never touched drugs or another man. Emily Beecham fined anyone who cursed on one of her sets, as opposed to having a mouth on her that would make a longshoreman blush. Marilyn was just a sweet misunderstood kid. George Reeves? Well never mind that. No one was foolish enough to ask. 

The only time Eddie was ever tempted to spill the beans was when that smart-mouthed, New York Jew-broad from NYU doing research about the blacklist asked him about Burt Gurney’s disappearance. The girl claimed to be doing a study on “gay erasure in Hollywood,” whatever that meant. She came up to the house with the usual steno pad and the usual glasses, along with a theory about how Burt was some kind of a martyr who’d been murdered because he was a homosexual and had threatened to expose some of Hollywood’s biggest stars and specifically an actor under contract to Capital Pictures. According to this theory, the whole “defecting to the Soviet Union,” was a ruse concocted by the studio heads to cover up the murder. Eddie managed to listen to this while sipping a cup of and nodding as though he were actually considering telling her some earthshaking facts that would validate her misbegotten delusion about what really happened to that low-rent Commie bastard. He was surprised to realize he was still sore after so much time and for a brief moment, he did consider telling the truth, mostly because Burt Gurney had conned him and nobody conned Eddie Mannix and got away with it. 

Of course it wasn’t just Eddie who’d been duped, there was also Laurence Laurentz. If anyone had been taken for a ride, it was definitely him. 

Or had he? 

Following whatever the hell had actually happened out there in the ocean, Eddie had a busy few weeks keeping the lid on everything, not to mention assigning a studio baby-sitter to keep an eye on that dolt, Baird Whitlock and making sure the Thacker twins were kept firmly in check. 

Eventually, he had to face facts and have a talk with the man who’d sold Eddie a bill of goods in the form of a sob story. What made it brilliant was that he’d been honest about everything, except the bit that had nearly sunk them all.

Laurentz must have been expecting him. He had a martini in hand and was lounging a little too casually on the same set where Hobie Doyle had so valiantly attempted to play the suave playboy. He’d had all the footage from debacle destroyed, and somehow editing had put together a viable performance. The kid had a future all right. Eddie owed him that much. Eddie believed in loyalty. Laurentz, on the other hand, was a smug snake who must have suspected he was about to become a non-person. All the talent, Oscars and connections in the world hadn’t saved James Whale or that creep Von Stroheim and it wasn’t going to save Laurence Laurentz. The only one who could do that was Eddie Mannix. The question was what Laurentz would do to save his own skin. 

“You lying prick,” he bellowed, mentally adding the cursing to his next confession. 

“Oh do sit down, Eddie. Have a drink.” 

Since this was a Laurence Laurentz set, the “prop” bottles were real and full, and soon Eddie found himself nursing a scotch and smoking one of the cigarettes Laurentz had offered him from a silver case. This was going to be a long confession.

“You’re just lucky I’m not having you thrown out of the studio and taken downtown for questioning?”

“For what exactly?” 

“For…,” he didn’t want to say it. 

“Being a queer?” Laurentz taunted him. “Making a rather vast sum of money for this tawdry capitalist endeavor you call a studio? Directing three Academy Award winning movies in four years, including managing to get a Best Actress Oscar for a girl who got the part by giving the illustrious chief of Capital Pictures something he couldn’t get in the marital bed or apparently any of the brothels in this town?”

“And who are you to look down at anyone else’s casting couch?” Eddie snapped back.

“Touché,” Laurentz sighed, but didn’t look particularly chagrinned.

“Let’s get back to that first point.”

“I suppose you could ride me out of town on a rail, but I suspect your lord and master would prefer that I finish the three films still in production. That could take months and months.”

“Or you could be out of here tonight. We’ll survive, but I’m not sure you will.” 

Eddie saw the cloud of doubt on Laurentz’s face the minute the director realize he’d overplayed his hand. 

“What do you want?”

“The truth.”

“Could you be a bit more specific, darling?” He practically trilled the last word, a la Tallulah Bankhead, causing Eddie to narrow his eyes into a piercing glare.

“Burt Gurney.” 

“Ah!” Laurentz let out a long sigh, accompanied by luxuriant stream of smoke. He resumed his languid posture on the couch. Eddie’s patience was running out. 

“Talk. Now.”

He almost felt sorry for the bastard as a mixture of emotions crossed his face, until Eddie remembered the meeting where Laurentz had screened Burt Gurney’s audition tape. The kid’s talent and charisma absolutely burned through the screen, even though the shooting had been done on the cheap at one of the last soundstages still in use at Astoria. Eddie instantly knew Burt Gurney could be a big star for Capital, picking up the slack left when some of the guys who’d gone to war, all of sudden felt like they were too serious for the song and dance stuff. 

Eddie’s job wasn’t just to fix problems, it was to head off trouble before it started. He knew that any piece of talent that Laurence Laurentz was offering the studio on a silver platter had to have some skeletons in the closet. 

Laurence had been almost too forthcoming, immediately volunteering the fact that Burt was one of his “protegees,” and letting Eddie read into those raised eyebrows as much he wanted to. Beyond that there were the usual details to be obscured such as Burt’s real name, his real hair color, and the work that would need to be done to bring his teeth up to Hollywood standards. There was also the fact that he was Jewish. Eddie breathed a big “Oy vey,” at that one. 

He had nothing against Jews personally, or even pansies for that matter. How a man went to hell was his own business and without writers and set designers, Hollywood would come to a standstill. As long as “Gurney” was willing to play ball, maybe even get married and keep the Jewish thing hush-hush, he could have a nice career. He’d even have all the chorus boys he wanted as long he never actually got caught with any of them. There was only one vice that could not find a hiding place behind the walls of Capital Studios and that was Communism. 

He’d had a private dick look into the kid’s past. Everything seemed to check out, including the homo bit, but Eddie still smelled rat. The kid was just a little too perfect, including the flaws, but damn if he wasn’t exactly Capital Pictures needed. Gurney, of course, had been willing to swear up, down and sideways, that he was a true-blue American, who’d have no truck with any of that Pinko stuff. He’d run down to the Brooklyn Navy Yard trying to enlist right after Pearl Harbor, but been declared 4-F due to some irregularity with his pinkie toes. The toes had still managed to twinkle him to a featured number in a review where Laurence Laurentz had become instantly besotted. Or as Burt coyly put it, “agreed to take my under his wing.” 

Eddie gave Laurence one chance to come clean, warned him of the consequences, growling and glaring the whole time. 

“Look,” Laurentz had whispered looking as though he were about to cry into the best plate of Fettucine Alfredo Ciro’s had to offer. “Burt’s parents, they’re from the old country, and back there, you know it was bad. The Tsar and his minion had no love for the Jews. So when the Commies came along, they fell for it hook, line and sinker. But Burt was born here and he doesn’t believe in any of that stuff. He just doesn’t want to hurt his parents. They don’t know anything about him, about his “love life,” or the fact that he’d kill himself before he’d do anything against this country, not that they’d ask him to, but they are still in the Party. Laurentz shook his head over the sadness of it all. Eddie felt his cynicism melting. He held it in place long enough to ask the obvious question.

“What’s in this for you? If we sign this kid and it goes to hell in a bucket, that bucket’s gonna have your fingerprints all over it.”

Laurentz let out a sigh that was also somehow a smirk. 

“You’re willing to risk everything for a piece of….” Eddie couldn’t say it, not so much because of having to confess, but because of having to think about it. 

“You must admit, it’s quite a lovely one.” 

He already had to confess anyway and it felt good to let one rip. 

“Fuck you, Larry!”

Burt Gurney signed his first contract with Capital Pictures the next day and by the end of the week, the dental transformation was underway. With the pearly whites in place and series of orchestrated “romances,” for the press, he quickly became one of Capital’s most bankable stars. He even earned Eddie a reputation for having an eye for talent, since Burt could hardly be touted as Laurence’s “discovery.” Everything worked out just fine, right up until it didn’t, and the man who’d sold Eddie that piece of commie, kike, faggot shit that nearly brought down the whole studio had the balls to sit there on a chaise longue like this wasn’t his fault in the first place.

Chewing Laurentz out wasn’t enough. Even firing his sorry ass, if he didn’t play ball, wouldn’t satisfy the itch in Eddie’s brain, comprised almost equally of betrayal and curiosity. 

“Did you know he was a pinko?” Eddie asked point blank, leading Laurentz to sigh and stare into the depths of his glass as though the olive there would get him out of this jam.

 

“I suspected him of leanings. But so many of us….of them…well, you know, all of the ideals….”

He’d never seen Laurence Laurentz quite so flustered. He suspected whatever heavily accented Eastern European type lay behind the cultured façade was about to break free.

“Larry,” he growled to let the director know exactly how thin the ice he walked on truly was.

Laurentz stubbed out his cigarette and found his composure along with his ice-cold fake continental sneer. 

“Of course I did. The first night he insisted on reading to me from The Communist Manifesto. “

“Before or after?” Eddie blurted out, and by the time realized exactly what he was asking, it was too late. 

“After. Always after. I’ll say this much. It was a beautiful summer. New York. Rain. Fifth Avenue. My apartment. His hotel. Backstage. On stage. By September I’d have done anything he wanted and he’d already done everything I wanted.” 

Eddie felt slightly sick. Laurentz distracted him with a question of his own. 

“What exactly will my pound of flesh entail?”

“Huh?”

“How do I keep my job? Not that I couldn’t simply go back to County Down, or to New York or Gay Paree, or even London town, but I’ve grown remarkably fond of the climate, as well as the paycheck. Not to mention the local scenery.” 

The last was said with raised eyebrows. _Oh, Larry,_ Eddie thought to himself. _You have no idea what’s about to hit you._

“Congratulations, Mr. Laurentz. You are going to get married.”

He blinked a few times, but otherwise took it in stride. 

“And who’s the lucky woman?”

Eddie almost wished he could torture Laurentz a bit longer, but the payoff was too good to delay. 

“Florence Starling.”

Laurentz nodded his head. Surely he saw the humor. Maybe he even knew that he was going to fill Burt Gurney’s tap shoes in a wedding that had been planned without the knowledge of either participant. Burt needed a wife and Florence needed…something between a nurse and a lion-tamer.

“I’d be honored. She’s a goddess.” 

“She’s got a great set of pipes and she cries on cue like a faucet. She’s also a crazy dope fiend, who never saw a chocolate cake she couldn’t eat in ten minutes.” 

“That doesn’t make her any less divine.” Laurentz glared imperiously. “She also had a childhood that would be too horrible for Charles Dickens to fathom and her various neurosis were not helped by her treatment at the hands of studio executives, including the Vice President in Charge of Production who…”

“Don’t!”

Their eyes met in a glare and Eddie was ashamed when he broke first. He’d won the battle, but the ensuing war was anyone’s guess. He made sure that the terms of surrender on Laurence Laurentz’s part were understood. 

“The boss thinks a baby might help settle her nerves a little.” Eddie thought he saw Laurentz’s nostrils flare a bit at this suggestion. He hastened to soften the blow. “I’m sure we can arrange a convincing adoption.” 

“Not necessary.” 

“No seriously, with the number of that gals getting knocked up around here…”

No. Seriously. Not necessary.” 

“But…” Eddie hated feeling flummoxed. 

“The poor girl has been rejected enough in her life. I can’t save her, but I won’t be the one to make it worse. Go ahead and post the bans. Our whirlwind romance will culminate in the nuptials as soon as possible. I wonder if she’ll change her name. Florence Laurentz. Has a ring to it, don’t you think?” Eddie continued furrowing his brown. “Oh for heaven’s sake Eddie. Even an old queen is capable of a bit of flexibility.” 

That did it. Eddie put down his glass, stubbed out his cigarette and started his march back to the executive suite to report that his mission had been a success before turning around one more time. He looked down at the shine on the top of his wingtips and then back at the slightly defeated figure on the prop divan that cost more than most of the furnishings in Eddie’s home.  
“Why?”

Laurentz looked perplexed. Or as if the martini was actually hitting home. 

“Why what?” 

“You risked everything. EVERYTHING! Your job, your citizenship, your reputation. My goddamned career. This whole bloody studio! You’re not stupid. You survived whatever the hell you went through in wherever the hell you went through it. What made you sit there and lie to me? Make me understand, because I need to. What the hell were you thinking?” 

After Eddie had finished bellowing his anger and disappointment, he could still feel his heart beating and the blood pounding in his head almost, but not quite, drowned out the soft simplicity of Laurentz’s answer to which Eddie could do nothing but shake his head and head out to plan the Hollywood wedding of the year, trying not feel the wrenching in his guts.

“Have you ever loved a dancer?”

Eddie never forgot those words. Twenty years later, they still haunted him enough to look the NYU broad dead in the eye and state for posterity that Burt Gurney was a confused kid from the sticks who’d gotten in over his head with some bad apples. Also, far from a case of “gay erasure,” Burt had been head over heels for Florence Starling and only become vulnerable to the blandishments of Communism when he found out about her torrid love affair with that well-known lady’s man, Laurentz Laurence. 

_How’s that for acting, Larry?_

Larry was long gone of course. Maybe the cigarettes, maybe the stress of trying to save Florence Starling from herself. No one could do that indefinitely, but Laurentz lived up to his part of the bargain, including the appearance of Laurel Laurence right on schedule. 

He’d spoken to Laurel at the funeral. On a brilliantly blue-skied Glendale day, they stood under one of those trees that looked pretty but always reminded Eddie of the locker room at Erasmus high. 

There’d never been any question that Larry was as good as his word. Looking into the eyes of the young woman who’d specifically invited him to the funeral, he could see the best of both Laurence and Florence. She had her father’s eyes, her mother’s voice and maybe a better sense of self-preservation than either of them. 

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Mannix.”

“Just wanted to pay my respects,” he mumbled, wondering just how much she knew about his role in her life story.

“Papa wanted me to thank you.” 

“For what?”

“For everything. For what you did for him. For Mama. For Burt.”

“You know…”

Laurel smiled serenely. 

“I know. Don’t worry Eddie. It really did work out best for everyone.” Eddie was still trying to absorb that, when Laurel handed him a manila envelope. The photograph was clearly Burt Gurney. His hair grown back to darkness and a rather luscious, equally dark-haired woman at his side. 

The letter appeared to be typed on a manual typewriter and was dated October 23, 1953. It had been folded and unfolded and perhaps cried over for twenty-five years. 

**Dearest one,  
I hope this finds you well. I hope it finds you at all. I still have a few friends over there who will take chances, but there is only so much I can ask when the risks are so great. You may think terrible things about me. Some may be true. Not all, not all at all. I think of New York often. I think of Fifth Avenue. I think of subways and Central Park. **

**Debrief took longer than expected, but I’m OK now. Klara takes very good care of me. She also thanks you for helping me as you did so I could fulfill my destiny to come here. Mazel tov on your marriage. Please give Florence my regards; I’m sure you will be very happy together.**

**As your favorite decadent western author once said, 'Tis in my memory locked,  
And you yourself shall keep the key of it.**

**I bid you farewell in the name of the glorious revolution.**

 

Eddie felt something painful rise in his chest. He placed the picture and letter in the envelope and handed it back to Laurel. She rose on her tip-toes to kiss him on the cheek before walking away, leaving him with the same sense of relief he used to get after doing penance. 

It was the last funeral Eddie Mannix ever attended.


End file.
